Source – newindianexpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n
KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Thursday directed the state government to carry out in three months load test of a defunct flyover here, before demolishing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A division bench comprising Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice A M Shaffique gave the direction on a petition by the Ernakulam-based Association of Structural and Geotechnical Consulting Engineers challenging the government’s decision to demolish and reconstruct the Palarivattom Flyover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The High Court directed the government to carry out load test in three months and submit the report before it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The flyover has been shut for traffic since May after it developed cracks within a few years of its construction taken up during the previous UDF tenure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government can select any agency to carry out the load test, the court said, adding the expense for it should be levied from the firm which constructed the bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month, the High Court had directed the state government not to demolish it till further orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The petitioner contended that the decision to demolish the bridge was taken without conducting load test to ascertain its structural stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government in September decided to rebuild the flyover, which has been closed for traffic since May after cracks and potholes surfaced within three years of its commissioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It had also ordered a vigilance probe into alleged corruption in the construction of the bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The decision to rebuild the flyover was taken after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan held discussions with PWD minister G Sudhakaran and “metroman” E Sreedharan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sreedharan had suggested that the flyover be rebuilt and it has been accepted by the government, Vijayan had said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The petitioner association claimed that the findings of Sreedharan about the stability of the bridge were wrong and he had recommended demolition without carrying out the load test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The association sought the appointment of an independent agency for conducting the test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The construction of the 750-metre long flyover began during the Congress-led UDF government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was completed during the LDF’s tenure in October 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within three years of its construction, large cracks were noticed in the pier caps of various pillars of the flyover following which it was closed for traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vijayan had ordered the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to probe the alleged corruption in the construction of the flyover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Retired Kerala PWD secretary T O Sooraj and three others — a top official of the company which constructed the flyover and two officials of a technical consultancy firm — were arrested by the VACB in connection with the case.<\/p>\n
Source – newindianexpress.com KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Thursday directed the state government to carry out in three months load test of a defunct flyover here, before demolishing it. A division bench comprising Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice A M Shaffique gave the direction on a petition by the Ernakulam-based Association of Structural and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2970],"tags":[6068,6301,2020,6303,6302,6127],"class_list":["post-7883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kerala-high-court","tag-chief-justice-2","tag-kerala-hc-2","tag-kochi","tag-load-test","tag-palarivattom-flyover","tag-state-government-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7885,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7883\/revisions\/7885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}